Midnight Lace (1960) | Presenting Hitchcock Podcast

Gooooood evening. In this month’s episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron are making a few calls as they discuss Midnight Lace.

Written by: 

Screenplay by Ivan Goff  & Ben Roberts

Based on the play “Matilda Shouted Fire” by Janet Green

Starring: Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin, Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall

Directed by: David Miller

Trailer:

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Hitchcock comparisons:

• Dial M For Murder

This film shares many commonalities with Dial M for Murder, which was released six years prior in 1954. Both films feature a telephone at the center of the plot and a husband called Tony; both films are set in London; John Williams and Anthony Dawson appear in both films; and both films are based on hit stage plays. In addition, the all-star cast of this film boasts several Hitchcock alumni: Doris Day from The Man Who Knew Too Much, John Williams from Dial M for Murder and To Catch a Thief, portraying an inspector in both films; Anthony Dawson also from Dial M for Murder; John Gavin from Psycho; and Herbert Marshall from Murder! and Foreign Correspondent. Another unusual connection: both this and The Man Who Knew Too Much feature orchestras conducted by someone directly involved with the film’s music, Joseph Gershenson and Bernard Herrmann, respectively.

The film rights were acquired while the play was touring the provinces in Britain, before it had arrived in London. 

Universal announced at the same time that the adaptation would be a vehicle for Doris Day, and co-produced through Arwin Productions, a production company Day started with Martin Melcher, her third husband. Melcher famously mismanaged her finances and left her bankrupt upon his death in 1968 after signing her to a TV show she knew nothing about. The Doris Day Show was very successful at CBS, despite its multiple format and cast changes over the course of its five-year run.

The leading characters in Janet Green’s original play are on a less exalted social level than the characters played by Doris Day and Rex Harrison in this film version; he is a garage owner, not a banker, and she is an ordinary middle-class housewife in a suburban home.

Doris Day found the making of the film emotionally taxing, drawing on real life abuse from her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden, for the performance. On one occasion she collapsed on the set, halting the production. She vowed to never make a thriller again, and stayed true to her word until retiring 8 years later.

This was one of several high-profile 1960 movies in which John Gavin appeared, all part of an effort by Universal-International to promote him into a potential competitor for America’s top male box-office star at the time, Rock Hudson. Among Gavin’s other credits that year were Spartacus, and his best-remembered role, that of Janet Leigh’s fiancée in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

At the time of this film’s original release, critics paid almost as much attention to Doris Day’s gowns, hairstyles, and jewelry as they did to her performance. The film’s focus on lush detail was one of the hallmarks of producer Ross Hunter, who specialized in “women’s pictures” and had also produced Day’s massive 1959 hit Pillow Talk.

Doris Day’s costumes for this film were created by Irene, a well-known, single-named designer who came out of a 10 year absence for the film, and got her second Oscar nomination. Two years after working on this film, Irene committed suicide, jumping from an upper-floor window of Hollywood’s Knickerbocker Hotel.

A television film remake of Midnight Lace, starring Mary Crosby and Gary Frank, premiered on NBC in 1981.

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Next up, we’ll be discussing The Silence of the Lambs

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